BENJAMIN KRISTAL. SECOND EMDR SESSION.
Watch your back.
My arm woke me—it’s itching like crazy.
Watch your back.
Itching under the cast where I can’t scratch it. Mom says I’m going to have to wear it for FOUR more weeks. The teacher made the whole class write stuff on it with Magic Markers—like ‘hope you get better’ and ‘sorry about your arm’ and John wrote ‘stop falling down the stairs ANUS’—but it weighs like two tons and the itching’s driving me nuts.
Watch your back.
Dad said you got to be more CAREFUL going down the stairs. That I wasn’t looking where I was going. Mom too. While Jenny was putting on this whole NICE act.
“Poor Ben, let me draw you a picture to make you feel better,” and Mom and Dad saying AWWW, say THANKS to your sister, Ben.
The picture was ME falling down the stairs, and guess who she drew standing at the TOP of the stairs. Smiling. Standing right where I lost my balance and took a header all the way to the bottom. That’s when I remembered. I’d FELT someone behind me.
Watch your back.
I tried to tell Dad. That it felt like someone, well, PUSHED me before I fell—and there was only ONE someone there. And he said what are you saying—are you blaming your SISTER for being a klutz? For not looking where YOU were going? And I said I WAS looking where I was going but maybe I should’ve been looking BEHIND me.
Not the FIRST time.
We were playing “Indian Trail” at the lake last summer and I was leading the scouting party and we marched up to Eagle Cliff, where you can look over the whole valley to see if settlers are coming, and I walked right up to the ledge because Jenny kind of dared me to. And I turned around to peek down, and suddenly she was right there behind me—like SHOVING me—and I grabbed a branch of this big dead tree and I said are you CRAZY, and she said she SLIPPED. But the ground wasn’t wet or nothing, it wasn’t—so how’d she SLIP, huh?
Watch your back.
Jaycee’s brother told me Jenny isn’t allowed at their house anymore.
Other kids too. Jenny like put Legos in Jaycee’s mouth and Jaycee started choking, and she did something to Toni too—I don’t know what, but SOMETHING, but when I asked Mom about it she said those girls are just being mean and making things up.
Watch your back.
One night I was dreaming I couldn’t breathe—and I woke up and guess what—I COULDN’T breathe, because there was a pillow over my face and Jenny was there on top of me holding it. When I yelled at her she said she was starting a PILLOW FIGHT, but like I’d been SLEEPING, and it’s not just that, it’s the way she LOOKED at me when I finally got her off me, like she hated me or something. Like she wanted to kill me.
Watch your back.
I would’ve DIED if I went over Eagle Cliff—it’s like a hundred million feet high—I could’ve died falling down the stairs too—that’s what Mom said—that I could’ve BROKEN my NECK.
Jenny’s younger and she’s a GIRL, so good luck getting them to believe ANYTHING bad about her. They won’t. They just won’t. EVER.
Watch your back.
But this morning, I forgot.